Canada’s public service needs stronger middle managers, fewer executives and a cadre of deputy ministers who are well-grounded in the business of departments they lead, said the new co-chair of the powerful advisory committee on the public service.

Hugh Segal said strengthening the performance and management of the public service, especially middle management, will be among his chief concerns as he takes over Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s blue-chip advisory committee on the public service along with his new co-chair, former Scotiabank banking executive Rick Waugh.

“We have to face what might be called a different type of challenge around the level of performance, the level of evaluation and the way in which we assess people,” said Segal in an interview.

The public service is in the throes of a major cultural shift with the unrolling of outgoing Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters’ Blueprint 2020 action plan to bring the public service into the digital age. At the same time, Treasury Board President Tony Clement is spearheading mandatory performance management agreements for employees as part of his push to beef up productivity and efficiency.

Segal said the committee will have to grapple with these changes but he broadly supports getting rid of management layers, scrapping more rules and reorganizing work to give public servants more flexibility and authority to do their jobs. It will demand stronger managers and more training for them.

He said the existing snare of rules, structures and processes limit managers’ power and “discretion” in influencing or making change. He said they need more discretion to open up and speed up decision-making. Also, he said the managers’ talents will vary by department with, for example, Canada Border Services Agency needing very different skills than Canadian Heritage.

Segal isn’t wed to the longstanding notion that managers are generic and can be moved from department to department.

He argued the second-in-command in the navy wouldn’t have got there without specific training, credentials and expertise, but the same isn’t expected of civilian public servants as they climb the ranks of the bureaucracy. The government needs to offer employees specific career paths with opportunities to get specialized certifications or designations.

Segal said the government must get a better handle on the work of some 7,000 executives and whether they are really doing executive work.

At the same time, he said deputy ministers should be skilled and knowledgeable about their portfolios when appointed to the job. He argued deputy ministers should stay put in their jobs for four or five years before being rotated into the next senior post.

Clement is taking a closer look at the executive ranks, which grew by 70 per cent since the massive downsizing of the 1990s.

Treasury Board commissioned a review of the work of executives that could change the structure of the senior ranks and affect executive compensation. A new job evaluation system for executives could also have a ripple effect on other public service jobs.

Clement is also reviving the former advisory committee on executive compensation and retention with a new mandate under the leadership of Vijay Kanwar, a Toronto businessman and chairman of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority.

This newly reconstituted committee met over the summer under its new mandate — on which Clement has yet to elaborate. Some argue the focus will be on containing costs since the government has no problem retaining executives.

Segal is no stranger to the workings of the public service, having spent 40 years in the public sector working as chief of staff to Ontario premier Bill Davis, chief of staff to prime minister Brian Mulroney, and president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, as well as nine years in the Senate, before becoming the master of Massey College.

The advisory committee was created by Harper in 2006 to give him an “external” view on the public service. The committee underwent a major turnover of members this year, including the departure of long time co-chairs Paul Tellier and David Emerson.

The committee meets quarterly and prepares annual reports for Harper and the PCO clerk, who is his chief bureaucratic advisor and heads the public service. It has issued eight reports so far and most of its recommendations have been implemented.

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